Ice-T's ambitious documentary Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap comes out today, and in honor of the occasion we spoke with him for our music feature this week. He talked on everything from his wife Coco's role in the film to the breathtaking logistical challenges of making it; they spent two years shooting on location in New York, Los Angeles and Detroit, flying to the latter city solely to get Eminem. But their sweat paid off, and the film features just about everyone prominent in rap over 30, including Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, KRS-One, Afrika Bambaataa, Ice Cube, Xzibit, Run-DMC and about a million others.

Oh, and Dr. Dre. In fact, they brought the helicopters out to film at Dre's new pad....

From Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap

...in the Hollywood Hills.

"We wanted to show something from nothing," Ice told me. "I thought Dre's house said it all. It's his new house, the $13 million house house, with a view of downtown to the beach, unobstructed. It's the craziest view ever. I was like, 'OK, you make N.W.A, you make Tupac, you make Eminem, you make The Game, you make 50 Cent, you get a $13 million house.'"

From the screenshots one can gather that the pad has it all -- columns, wrap-around pool that doesn't look like it's meant to be swum in, nice ass landscaping, geometric tile work.

It's clearly a step up from his former pad in Woodland Hills, which was more of a "mansion in a nice neighborhood" than a "palatial fucking compound."

The view from the front is below.

From Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap

Or maybe it's the view from the back. When a pad has views in every direction, it's all relative.

In any case, to hear Ice explain it, Dre's decadence is simply an example of the world being as it should.

"It's only right," he said. "[People] don't want to see their hero doing bad. They want to feel, 'Wow, I really supported them.' They don't want the money rubbed in their face, but they don't want to see me doing bad. They're like, 'Come on, I've been with Ice-T for years. I want Ice to do good. He's my man.' It comes with it, you know?"

In other news, he and Coco, nowadays based in New Jersey (where Ice is originally from), are upgrading from a condo to a house. No word yet if it will be merely large or Dre-level bizzonkers.

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Ben Westhoff is the former L.A. Weekly music editor, and author of Dirty South and Original Gangstas: The Untold Story of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast Rap. He's written for Rolling Stone, Vice, Village Voice and Deadspin, and is currently a columnist for the Guardian.